Various toaster ovens exist for heating and cooking a variety of food items. For example, existing toaster ovens are used for toasting bagels, heating sandwiches, baking desserts, broiling meats and reheating leftovers. Heating and cooking these food items is often accomplished by the operation of upper and lower heating elements within the toaster oven, and temperature control and time control over these heating elements through a user interface or control panel.
While existing toaster ovens are generally suitable for what is regarded as ordinary performance, there is room for improvement in terms of ease of use, compactness, and performance, including temperature and time control of the upper and lower heating elements. In particular, existing toaster ovens are only particularly suited to toast or bake a limited certain food items and are only temperature and time controllable to a limited extent.